Arkham Asylum
by Arkham's Writers
Summary: Madness. Insanity. Isolation and Despair. A collection of one-shots written by several writers all centering around one of fiction's most infamous hell houses. Minor character/OC heavy, multiple universes and cannon.


_This is a collection of loosely related one-shots centering around the infamous Arkham Asylum written by __**AlsoSprachOdin, **__**IVIaeadhros**, and **MindAsylum** as part of an exercise where we were each given a week to write out stories. We hope that you enjoy our little experiment in cooperation and deadlines.  
_

When the man first awakened, only half conscious of a sterile white light that gave no heat, he thought that he dreamed. He should not be here, this he knew. So he closed his eyes and willed himself back to a home he didn't really remember, to banish away the aching light, but the light never left. It hovered above him and penetrated the thin veil of his eyelids. The man tried to raise his arm to ward off the light, but found that it would not respond. The man tried again, giving the action his full attention, but the flesh remained limp: an unfeeling mass that seemed to have been sewn onto his body. The effort tired him out. So he lay there, unfeeling except for the faint sensation of a great weight of water and weariness pressing down on his chest. The weariness and weight slowly grew, pulling him down so that when the man closed his eyes he hadn't realized they had been open and again fell asleep. The next time he woke, the strange weight was gone and forgotten, and as he opened his eyes for the third time, found he could see. With the white glare slowly receding from his vision the man saw above him the source of the light, all present no longer: a single, large fluorescent bulb suspended above him from the white plastered ceiling by a rusted steel lamp. And hovering above him was another man, whom he did not know.

You're awake.

Yes.

Did you have good dreams?

I don't know. I think I did.

Do you remember who you are?

Oliver. My name is Oliver.

The name came to him automatically, but slowly, like oil might slowly rise to the surface of water. The man called Oliver looked up at his companion and tried to remember him, but no impressions arrived. Oliver found that as he tried to recall the man, the weariness came back over him, pulling him back under dark mud of consciousness. Where am I, he asked. Your old home, the man answered. Oliver looked around as well he could. He found that he lay on a plain white, overstuffed bed with thin white sheets and a scratchy tan plan blanket over top, steel rails on either side, a bulky cart of machinery and tubes to his right. The room was large, plain, blinding white; empty of any objects save for four other beds identical to his. There were four beds identical to his own: two with men, one that was empty and one with someone who he thought might be a woman. He couldn't be sure though. Her face was swathed in medical gauze, but Oliver fancied he saw something feminine in the curve of the nose and the slenderness of the neck. Are you ready to get up, the man asked. Yes, he replied.

Sitting was difficult, standing almost impossible. Content to be left in the dark a while longer, Oliver worked in silent tandem with his anonymous companion. First the tan blanket was removed and then the sheets, revealing his body. Oliver said nothing, but he was surprised to find that his body was as gaunt and pale as a corpse. Nearly translucent skin stretched drum-tight over bones with nightshade veins weaving their way through him. As his gaze slid over his chest and down his stomach, Olivier was startled to see two clear tubes, each about two inches in diameter, had been inserted into his abdomen, connecting it with the machine cart. Another answer slowly floated to the surface unsummoned and Olivier guessed that they somehow connected to small intestine, in the duodenum and into his large intestine, near the ascending colon. A final set of tubes snaked into his wrist and into the cart, shuttling his blood back and forth. Oliver looked at his silent companion who now held him in a supportive embrace.

Why are these here?

They kept you from leaving.

You mean they kept me from dying?

Yes.

Oliver was too tired to care further. The weariness was upon him again, pulling at his conscious. With a good deal of struggle, his companion helped Oliver into a wheelchair he'd brought in, and together they exited the white room. Slowly, the two companions journeyed down the empty hallways, silent except for the wheelchair, which squeaked with every full rotation of the left wheel. The building that Olivier had found himself in seemed alien, foreign to him somehow. The walls were lined with the occasional paintings donated by some artist or other, while potted plants appeared on every corner. But it did not feel likeable. And there were no people. He asked his guide about this and was told that it was very early in the morning.

But what's the hour?

I don't know. There are no clocks in Arkham, only watches...the staff have them. Time is only a guest here.

...

What is your name?

Most people call me Archie.

Oh.

…

Where are you taking me?

To the front entrance.

The two continued on, the man called Archie and Oliver saying no more. Oliver still felt unbearably tired and struggled to stay awake. Instead, he observed as the other man would narrate for him the places of their journey. This is one of our libraries, one of their rec rooms. Oliver paid him little attention though as his feelings of anxiety increased. It was then that Oliver noted that he had not been paying attention to what his guide had been saying.

Could you repeat that?

This is White Hall.

And what's special about White Hall?

I don't know. But it's called White Hall because there are no decorations.

Oliver looked around and noticed that it was indeed so. They passed down the hallways with no interruptions in the stark whiteness save for the occasional door. Their small windows were dark though and there was no seeing through them, save one. The lights were on and through a tiny, wire-crossed window a man stared out at the two travelers. The man's face was white and ugly, his hair hanging down in dank clamps and framed his broken face and the twisted smile permanently cut into his mouth. His eyes were filled with a manic fire and as Oliver passed, the man behind the door way waved at him. Oliver waved back. The man behind the door burst into shrieks of laughter. Oliver heard none of it. The door was too thick. As the Oliver and his companion passed beyond the doorway, there was a dull banging. The man was banging on the door, smashing it. Archie seemed to interpret this somehow and he turned the chair around, bringing it to rest in front of the laughing man's window. The man was still laughing as Oliver was wheeled up. Eventually the man stopped and held up his finger, mouthing that he wanted Oliver to 'wait one'. The man ducked away and reappeared later with a piece of paper that he had written on in orange crayon.

DON'T FORGET WHAT YOU LEARNED. LOVE J

Oliver could only nod. J waved and ducked away again before Oliver could think to do anything in kind. J didn't reappear as Archie began pushing the chair down the way they had been going. Eventually the halls regained their decorations and the rooms turned into offices. The two ended in massive waiting area that was full of overstuffed couches overseen by a large desk at the front of the room. At the other end, two massive double doors revealed the way out. As Oliver further examined the room, head turning slowly in the daze of fatigue, he noted that they were not alone.

Professor Milo, Mr. Archer, a pleasure to meet you both.

Oliver knew again that she referred to himself. He had been a professor of sorts, a chemist he knew. There had been an accident and panic and countless horrifying visions and then he was at Arkham, talking to Archer with tubes up his gut. Oliver knew this woman as well. The last time he had seen her, the stout African American had been wearing a cheap business suite with a black blouse and holding a file folder.

Miss Waller. What brings you here from Cadmus?

You.

Will you be taking me away from here?

Yes, I will.

Oliver nodded at this, eagerly. His memories were fast returning and he knew that Arkham had not been good to him. Even now he felt as the weariness that he had struggled against since waking up was reaching up to claim him, that Arkham was still trying to hold on to him even as he was leaving. His breath had become fast and weak and there was a slight dampness on his skin where his clothes rested. 

It did not change as Waller took over his chair from Archie and the trio walked out through the doors into the sea thick air, and neither did it change when they placed him, chair and all, into a parked white van with government markings. None of the three spoke as Oliver and all of his equipment was strapped into the van. Waller asked him if he felt comfortable. He said he was. Waller exited the car after saying she had to deliver some paperwork. Archie finished the last of the straps and was about to leave when he turned back and spoke to Oliver with one hand resting lightly on Oliver's shoulder.

Just remember that Arkham never really leaves you.

Archie gave his shoulder a small squeeze before hopping out of the van and closing the door. The van rumbled to life and soon they were pulling away. As they moved down the driveway, Oliver twisted as best he could in his chair and looked back at the black outline of Arkham against the lighter twilight of Gotham. And as they turned the last bend, the lights of Arkham flickered on in the early morning haze, one by one, corpse lights that illuminated nothing but themselves. They grew brighter and brighter until he all he saw was their yellow-white glare. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed because he knew that Arkham wasn't going to leave him. It was going to snatch him up again and never let him go because you could never really leave Arkham.

………….

The asylum orderly looked down at the twitching body of one Professor Oliver Milo, one-time freelance researcher and criminal and now permanent decoration at Arkham Asylum, home to the criminally insane. After scribbling a few more notes about the patient's vital signs, the staff member reached over and methodically depressed a row of switches that controlled Milo's life support. A few seconds passed as the heart monitor's rhythmic beat grew more and more erratic before flat-lining. The orderly sighed and shook his head as he walked away as the disposal team came up. He'd had such hopes that the professor would recover from his catatonic state. The criminal genius had come from the county hospital nearly fully recovered, his brains showing increasing mental activity. He'd arrived at Arkham because they could better monitor and care for the invalid. There'd been continued improvement, but the professor had never awakened, only making random movements that those in his state were wont to do. Eventually the order had come down that state funding had been cut again and someone had to go. Law abiding citizens took the natural priority.

"Such a waste; thought he had every chance of recovering."

**I**VI**a**ed**h**ro**s**))--


End file.
